106.  What then is the story, and wherein lies its application?  For, perhaps, it would not be amiss to relate it, for the general security.  Jonah also was fleeing from the face of God,335    Jonah i. 3. or rather, thought that he was fleeing:  but he was overtaken by the sea, and the storm, and the lot, and the whale’s belly, and the three days’ entombment, the type of a greater mystery.  He fled from having to announce the dread and awful message to the Ninevites, and from being subsequently, if the city was saved by repentance, convicted of falsehood:  not that he was displeased at the salvation of the wicked, but he was ashamed of being made an instrument of falsehood, and exceedingly zealous for the credit of prophecy, which was in danger of being destroyed in his person, since most men are unable to penetrate the depth of the Divine dispensation in such cases.

Ρ#2ʹ. Τίς οὖν ἡ ἱστορία καὶ πόθεν ἡ συμβουλή; οὐδὲ γὰρ χεῖρον ἴσως ἀσφαλείας ἕνεκεν τῶν πολλῶν διελθεῖν. Ἔφευγε καὶ Ἰωνᾶς ἀπὸ προσώπου τοῦ Θεοῦ, μᾶλλον δὲ φεύγειν ᾤετο: ἀλλὰ κατελήφθη πελάγει, καὶ χειμῶνι, καὶ κλήρῳ, καὶ γαστρὶ κήτους, καὶ τριημέρῳ ταφῇ, τύπον ἐχούσῃ μυστηρίου μείζονος. Ἀλλ' ἐκεῖνος μὲν, ἵνα μὴ τὴν σκυθρωπὴν καὶ ἄτοπον ἀγγελίαν ἀγγείλῃ τοῖς Νινευΐταις, καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο ψεύστης ἁλῷ, σωθείσης τῇ μετανοίᾳ τῆς πόλεως: οὐ γὰρ τῇ σωτηρίᾳ τῶν πονηρῶν ἐδυσχέραινεν, ἀλλὰ τὴν διακονίαν τοῦ ψεύδους ᾐσχύνετο, καὶ οἷον ἐζηλοτύπει τῆς προφητείας τὸ ἀξιόπιστον, ὅπερ ἐν αὐτῷ καταλυθῆναι κίνδυνος ἦν, οὐ δυναμένων τῶν πολλῶν συνιδεῖν τῆς τοῦ Θεοῦ περὶ ταῦτα οἰκονομίας τὸ βάθος.